Change

Change. It can suggest flux, unrest, a disruption of the status quo. Change implies transformation, evolution, revolution, but also the natural way of things. It can be gentle, imperceptible, and it can be severe, jolting. Change is unpredictable. It moves to its own song, but it is always constant and inevitable. ‘We are in times of great change’ has been a common catchphrase over countless generations, but in this era it is perhaps most commonly associated with developments such as new digital technologies – constantly changing and becoming superseded even as they are launched – and the collision of technological and social drivers.

The way we interact, socialise, communicate and gather as a community or collective has undergone extreme change and no longer relies on physical proximity. Climate change and transforming environments, from urban to remote, also play an urgent role in our modern understanding of change, as does changing the boundaries of political and cultural geographies and alliances. These are shifting in often extreme ways, as evidenced through the global refugee crisis that is seeing more people on the move and displaced from their communities and homelands than witnessed in recent history.